Theft including shoplifting causes substantial loss for retailers. This problem is magnified when the sale items are high priced and miniature electronic products because their sizes are so small that they can be easily pocketed without notice. There are many attempts of developing mechanisms and apparatuses to deter theft.
The conventional ways of deterring theft include placing products within extra large packaging or placing electronic RFID tags within the package. However, these conventional approaches do not totally remove this concern as the products can still be removed from the packaging and stolen. As for high value but physically small products such as electronic devices, they are often kept under counter or packaged with a packaging sealing that becomes difficult and hazardous to open. However, these approaches are not customer-friendly, resulting in decrease of sales.
Another method of deterring theft is activating a product at the point of sale (POS) at the checkout cashier. For example, pre-paid magnetic telephone calling cards are useless until they are validated at the POS. Hence these cards can be left hanging off a rack with simple, lower security packaging, with no fear of loss, since they cannot be used unless activated by the cashier at the POS. However, the activation process is not done at the checkout cashier, instead it requires the reader at the checkout cashier to send the information to a centralized processor; when the card number matches with any entry of the centralized database, it will allow the user to use the card by entering the card number.
US 2005/0240498 A1 discloses a verification and activation module that may be used for theft deterrence. The verification and activation module is removably coupled with a product having control circuits. Apparently, this dedicated verification and activation module may be suitable for large items; it is not suitable for small items such as miniature electronic devices.
Therefore, there is a need for a simple and effective mechanism and method for theft-deterrence.